


the kinda man with all the keys

by BlasphemousProphet



Category: The Get Down (TV)
Genre: M/M, Thor Is a Good Bro, grappling with the concept of privilege, summer in the bronx, the world is patently unfair, who doesn't totally get dizzee's stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-12 22:21:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10500618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlasphemousProphet/pseuds/BlasphemousProphet
Summary: It's far out, the way Thor can just unlock all these doors and Dizzee can just follow him. Ed Koch's been elected, nothing is safe, Thor keeps hopping on trains to the Bronx and Dizzee's got no idea why.





	

Thor’s got the keys to any door in the city. Any damn door. That’s the difference between him and everybody Dizzee has ever known. And when Dizzee’s with Thor, Dizzee gets to go through doors too, head into rooms like he’s never seen before, and stay there, and watch. Thor always does more than watch. He doesn’t have to watch anything when the world is watching over him with a careful, benevolent eye. That’s not like any kind of world Dizzee’s ever lived in.

Cops just pass Thor on the street without giving him a passing glance. Girls giggle at the sight of Thor. Legs just open, magically. Boys give him high fives that end in bags of weed. Dizzee never even sees Thor pay for them.

Dizzee looked it up in the library. Thor was a Norse god, a white boy, who got a bigass hammer to play with. Thor got lightning, storms, strength, protection, oak trees. Dizzee got Rumi. A deep to the max poet for sure, but he got no superpowers. And he sure as hell can’t get through any doors.

It’s not like Dizzee doesn’t try exploring the city when Thor isn’t around. (Thor isn’t around a lot. Dizzee wonders what he’s doing, with who, where, why he couldn’t drag Dizzee along…Dizzee’s been dragged along his whole life, on every one of Zeke or Ra or Ba’s bummer schemes. Dizzee’s used to being along for the ride. He wants to be. Although sometimes, there’s no ride. Thor is the ride. Those times are copacetic. Dizzee’s never used that word before, it never occurred to him to, but stretched out in a subway, Thor’s undivided attention on him, that’s the only word to explain it. Copacetic.)

And Dizzee can’t get in anywhere without Thor.

“Kid, come back when your jeans aren’t from Goodwill!”

“Sorry, bro, if you can’t pay the cover fee…”

“This art gallery is a fine establishment for respectable fellows.”

“Fuck off!”

“Listen, I got a quota of beautiful people to fill here, you dig? You ain’t one of em.”

“Can’t let you in without a girl. No girl, no entry.”

Black, poor, without a chick…Dizzee ain’t getting anywhere. Thor always comes with chicks, at least one, and they smile at Dizzee and sometimes all three of them go into a room at a party together and leave their clothes behind. Dizzee didn’t realize ordinary people could even get that.

And then Ed Koch is elected.

Boom. Taggers start getting arrested. Look, the Bronx might be a pile of dusty fucked up shit, but it’s Dizzee’s pile of shit and he made it beautiful, all over the city. They took their cans and they painted wild ugly beautiful things deep into the night and now they’re all gonna be painted over.

This hurts more than the idea that he can’t explore the fucking city without Thor as a tour guide. This is his stuff, his art, his legacy. Now it’s all fucked. If Dizzee wasn’t also a Get Down Brother, he’d have nothing to live for.

Thor doesn’t get it.

“Just tag in secret,” he says. “That’s what I do now.”

“Whaddaya think I was doing before?” Dizzee snaps. He’s never snapped at Thor before. Maybe no one ever has.

“I know it’s hard now, but-“

“You don’t get it!” says Dizzee and he marches over to the other side of the tunnel. He’s embarrassed of his outburst. He feels naked now, like he stripped his feeling like shit’s unfair (no duh) and now Thor can see it.

Dizzee feels a hand on his shoulder, then another one slip under his shirt.

“So take a break from tagging,” says Thor. “Let’s switch notebooks again instead.”

Dizzee sucks in a ragged breath. “S’ too hard to paint when I know it’s all gonna be painted over,” he says. “And I can’t get in more trouble with the rents. If I get arrested…it’s bad, Thor.”

Thor’s from Brooklyn. Dizzee doesn’t even get why he comes to the Bronx so much.

“Fucking Koch,” says Thor.

“That’s your people,” says Dizzee. He’s teasing, but not really.

Thor paints a giant NO on the ground right by Dizzee’s feet. It’s purple, the color of royalty. It almost glows in the dark.

“I got stuff,” says Dizzee, and he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the condom he had stolen from Shao’s stash, and the lube he had bought all the way over in Queens where no one knew him.

Thor looks pleased. “Let’s go then,” he says.

“Where?” says Dizzee. He’s embarrassed to say he thought they was gonna fuck right there in the tunnel.

“I know a place,” says Thor.

Dizzee picks up his stuff. Thor waits for him. Thor is all mellow, like he always just smoked a joint, like someone hollowed out all the anxious nervous sad angry bits of him. Maybe that’s what being white is all about.

“You know I can’t get into any places without you,” says Dizzee. They start to walk, Thor’s hand tucked up under Dizzee’s shirt, just feeling him up.

“What?” says Thor.

“I can’t get into any places without you,” Dizzee repeats. He looks straight forward. To be aloof, like an alien king, that’s his thing. Up, up and away.

“You’ll get into places soon,” says Thor. “Once they all know you.”

“And they’re gonna know me?” Dizzee snorts.

Thor tucks Dizzee under his arm. He feels big and safe.

“Rumi, baby, soon everyone’s gonna know your name,” Thor promises. He’s so smooth. He’s a smooth cat, Thor. Dizzee’s never met anyone like him. He got styles.

Dizzee turns in and sniffs Thor’s armpit. He smells rank, the way everyone does when they’re outside all day in the Bronx. He smells like he could be anyone.

Dizzee likes when Thor calls him Rumi. He feels like a dog getting petted. Everything seems so easy when Thor’s around.

“You don’t gotta flatter me,” grumbles Dizzee.

“Sure I do,” says Thor cheerfully.

It’s far out, really, the way Dizzee and Thor found each other. Even when Thor’s got his girls and his parties and his boys and his doors, he sometimes comes to the Bronx to get Dizzee. And Dizzee gets to tag along, the way he’s spent his whole life following Zeke or Shao or whoever, because it’s easy and safe and feels kinda sweet. But following Thor, it’s not like following anyone else. Its good vibes and keys and hands all over him. Following Thor makes Dizzee feel alive.

And someday, Dizzee suspects, during that future time when everybody’s already learned the name of Dizzee Rumi Get Down Brother Kipling, it’s gonna be Thor who’s following him.

**Author's Note:**

> I really slept on The Get Down, but here's this, in honor of Part II coming up. Watch it! And come talk to me about your weird Mylene feelings (I don't love her, I haven't parsed out why) at blasphemousprophet.tumblr.com.  
> And feel free to comment. I don't have a job rn and I need that sweet, sweet validation.


End file.
